Alva Noto recommendations

All I have of his is Xerrox Vol. 1 & 2 (which are both fantastic). I recently got to hear his upcoming Univers album and loved it... gonna purchase that the day it's released. I'm trying to get a little more into Alva Noto and he's got lots of stuff... so just looking for a bit of guidance on what I should check out (while waiting for Univers).

I know Univers is a continuation of his Unitxt work... how's that album? For anyone who has heard Univers, how does it compare?

I know he's got lots of work with Ryuichi Sakamoto which everyone raves about... but there is quite a bit of it. What would you consider the best starting place for that?

Anything else I should check out? Or you can just list your favorite Alva Noto albums and why... any help is appreciated!

i dont have all of his records but the latest one by Sakamoto Noto is really good, not sure its the best as a starting point but actually it's a strong record.

try to get the dvd Insen live with sakamoto, they're playing tracks from vrioon, insen & revep, i'm actually listening to it at the moment.

Insen and Insen Live are both astounding. Also check out his project as "Cyclo." with Ryoji Ikeda. Otherwise I'm not too knowledgeable about his music. Unitxt is good except for the songs where that guy is reading poetry in German or whatever.

Cyclo, his collaboration with Ryoji Ikeda is very good.

damnit cap

Transform

Transrapid

Transvision

Unitxt

also check out Frank Bretsvhnider's Rhythm and EXP

Unitxt = yes

For 2 is also very very good.

I think Univrs is better than Unitxt. univrs is probably his best album outside the Xerrox stuff, imo. But Unitxt is great too. It's similar but harsher I think; there is less space and the textures are sharper than on Univrs. It all kind of sounds like the second half of Uni Iso, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I wanted to recommend some non-Alva Noto stuff that is good for similar reasons. You should try out his album under the name Aleph-1 for something sort of between his ambient work and his beat-oriented stuff like univrs/txt.

Also, you would probably enjoy Byetone's 'Death of a Typographer' even though it's not a Carsten Nicolai project. It has a similar sound, but is closer to more traditional dance music. It's really fantastic. You could also check out the collab project between Alva Noto, Byetone and Frank Bretschneider called Signal; the album Robotron is good and similar to Univrs style.

Ooh, this is ALL good info! Thanks guys (especially grue)... I'll definitely check some of these out when I get a chance.

And feel free to keep the recommendations coming...

First album by Kangding Ray!

I love the anbb album, might be worth a shot.

his mix for RA recently was pretty fun

Get byetone - death of a typographer

If you like the Enter the Void's opening credits / guessing who is the new Kraftwerk you will love this

Full screen please

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaAsxo9u8tA&feature=player_embedded

For the Ryuichi Sakamoto collaborations start with Insen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QutO38QRcs

  On 9/23/2011 at 4:25 PM, Capsaicin said:

Unitxt is good except for the songs where that guy is reading poetry in German or whatever.

The guy speaks french and he enumerates random words in track 1 and numbers in track 5.

The numbers being read are the numbers found on Carsten Nicolai's credit cards and other cards in his wallet.

  On 9/25/2011 at 2:02 PM, m u st co n t r ol t h o 4 said:

If you like the Enter the Void's opening credits / guessing who is the new Kraftwerk you will love this

 

Full screen please

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaAsxo9u8tA&feature=player_embedded

he used the new max/msp logo instead of the old one :(

Well, I listened to some samples from recommended albums and decided to give Unitxt the first try... I'll let you know what I think when it arrives. Thanks again, guys!

Xerrox Vol.1 is his best album. Absolutely stunning when played live.

I love his TransAll trilogy too (already mentioned in this thread), TransSpray being IMO its best part.

Also on Raster Noton, Ryoji ikeda's Data.Plex is an amazing album :

  On 9/26/2011 at 2:19 PM, lin said:

Also on Raster Noton, Ryoji ikeda's Data.Plex is an amazing album :

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5hhFMSAuf4

yeah, it's a must have

+54395273451987692 for checking out Dataplex. An almost impossibly good album.

new Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto > top ten best album of the year

new Alva Noto > still unlistenable sorry

I got Unitxt and have listened through it about 4 times so far... really good stuff! I've heard some people say it sounds harsh and annoying, but I actually find it quite soothing. Works very well in the background as I'm working on my computer (in the same way some Autechre stuff does). If anything, I would just prefer a little bit more variety as most tracks sound very similar... but I think Univers fixes that problem.

I gotta say... I actually enjoy having the data tracks on there also, especially playing the album on shuffle. When I heard them as samples on Bleep I thought it was TERRIBLE to have those on there.... but I don't know, it just kinda makes sense in the context of the whole project. So thanks again, guys!